Jewish people were landless for almost 2000 years after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Remans. They lived around the Mediterranean until the middle ages where they slowly moved north, mainly to Eastern Europe. Because of anti-semitism (Christians seeing them as killers of Christ), they lived isolated and increased the anti-Jewish feeling.
By the nineteenth century European attitudes began to change towards the Jews. But once they began to move into modern national states aggressive movements against them began to emerge. Four million Jews fled to Western Europe and America. It was now that a new movement was made, called Zionism, which promised them a homeland. Under this biblical dream, tens of thousands of Zionist pioneers left where they were and went to Palestine.
Most of the people were so absorbed in their Zionist dream they barely realised the fact that there were already people living in Palestine and believed the new homeland was simply bare desert. However there were half a million Arabs there. Some felt they should go and find another homeland land and others felt they could simply absorb them into their culture. Many Arabs welcomed them at first and helped them on the land, but as more Zionists arrived, pressure on land increased. The Zionist aim of independence cut them off from the Arab societies and this is where it went wrong. It began a process of self-segregation against which the Arabs were forced to defend for themselves. It was this stage that the British began to move in. it provided a main sea route and was a land route to India, there was also oil supplies in Iraq so they established themselves in Egypt.
The end of World War One destroyed the Ottoman Empire, which had been ruling for centuries. The region was divided for Britain and France. In the period between World War One and Two new Arab states were founded and gradually gained their independence. .
From the 1920s Arabs began to show anger with a declaration stating Palestine the "national home" for Jews, and allowed the give away of Palestinian land.
